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afraid, afterlife, Bible, christian, Christianity, death, Emotions, fear, jesus, life, Philosophy, Psychology, reincarnation, Religion
I’d like to think I’m a pretty brave person, that’s the persona I give off to people…that I’m not afraid of anything, that I can do anything. It’s not true though, I’m afraid of a lot of things. I’m extremely afraid of heights and small spaces…which is why I hate flying in planes. I think every plane I’m on is going to crash; therefore, I’ve resolved to never travel by air again (unrealistic).
I used to be extremely afraid of animals. If it had: teeth (the potential to bite), claws (the potential to scratch), a beak to peck, or was slimy or gross looking (reptiles and amphibians), then I was afraid of it…so that’s basically all animals right there. I’ve slowly overcome this fear where I can actually now walk down the street and not cross to the other side when I see someone walking their dog. I’ve even graduated to the level of owning a pet.
I’m also afraid of failure, mediocrity, or not making something out of my life. It’s bad to the point where I won’t even pursue what I’m passionate about. I’ll take the “safe” routes because that’s what expected of me. My parents came from poverty from a village you’ve never heard of, and they were able to do amazing things with their lives and significantly impact the lives of others. Meanwhile, I’m here, with everything handed to me on a silver platter, and I still can’t figure out what exactly I’m meant to do with my life. Extremely pathetic.
My biggest fear, however, is death. I don’t want to die. In the words of Groucho Marx, I intend to live forever, or die trying. I’m afraid of death for 2 reasons, the first one is when and how I’m going to die. I don’t want to die when I’m young. I don’t care if I’ve accomplished everything known to man by the time I’m 30, I’m still not interested in dying then. I also don’t want to die some horrible death. I think every form of death is horrible except for the one where you peacefully pass in your sleep, and by peacefully, I don’t mean a heart attack, or where you’re gasping for air and nobody hears you but then they wake up the next day and see you’re dead…so they think you died peacefully. No thanks. By peaceful, I mean a death where I’ve said my last prayers, made my peace, drift into a nice dream, and then pass…and that should happen when I’m 93 years or older and I should be somewhat expecting it.
The main reason I’m scared of death is because I fear the unknown. Is there an afterlife? Do we just decay in the ground? Do we become reincarnated? I want to know. Every religion or philosophical person thinks they have the answer to this question…but religion is the biggest trap ever, especially the Abrahamic Religions. Do this and you’ll go to heaven. Do this and you’ll go to hell, but how do we find out if heaven and hell are real? You can’t. The only way to find out is if you die, and no dead person has ever come back to tell the tale…so we can see how much of a trap it is.
I really want to believe God is real, but I question everything. Just because I want to believe something is real, and just because I believe something to be real doesn’t make it real. It might make it real to me, but that doesn’t change the fact of whether it is real or not. Just because I believe I have a million dollars in my bank account, my dry account balance tells me otherwise.
I was raised a Christian. Christianity is based so much on faith. The Bible even talk about Faith many times. Blessed are those who believe without seeing…or something like that. The generation that asks for signs and wonders…or something like that. I mean HOW CONVENIENT. Is it wrong to ask for signs and wonders? As far as I can tell, almost every miracle Jesus performed had some physical evidence, according to the Bible. He didn’t heal a blind man’s eyes and say to him, yo blind man, you’re healed right now even though your eyes still can’t see, just trust me. I got you. You’re healed. It didn’t work like that, there was some kind of proof, something tangible.
Yet when I ask for proof, I’m demanding signs and wonders, and I’m not having enough faith. The other thing I don’t get is how Christianity doesn’t seem very concrete to me. Okay, in the old testament, when God spoke to people, they actually heard a voice. Nowadays, apparently, God doesn’t speak through voices anymore. He speaks through circumstances. How exactly is that concrete? Okay for example, my mom and I were driving one day and she got lost so we ended up missing the event. Her first response was, maybe God didn’t want us to go to that event, so he worked this out like this…ORRRR MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, YOU DIDN’T PLAN ACCORDINGLY, AND GET THE DIRECTIONS BEFOREHAND, just saying.
I’m not trying to bash any religion. I just don’t understand it. I’m afraid that when I die, there may be a heaven and a hell, and I may not have lived my life right enough so I end up in hell. I’m also afraid that when we die, there’s nothing. We just decay. That part saddens me a lot…to think that after our time here, there’s nothing else…that our lives are really just this short time on earth…that there is a nothingness afterwards. I don’t know, but even hell sounds better than an emptiness…and I think that’s why religion, if invented, was invented. Not just for the control aspect or to get people to act in a certain manner, but something to make us feel better about life…something to make life worthwhile…to give us hope, yeah your life may have sucked here but there’s something better.